I took some advice and install a bare-bones debian 6 system. I used the smallest iso I could find. The 40MB ISO image which is just the installer. I got up and booted into a login. Logged in as root, installed sudo. I added my regular username to the sudoers file. Rebooted. Logged in as a regular user, and then sudo apt-get installed elinks for further help from the web. I then installed the x-window-system, and then fluxbox. Now I have a, somewhat odd desktop to begin with, but minimal and functional. Functional enough to post on here about my progress. This is fun!

Downloaded the alsa source, compiled and installed alsa, got my Asus Xonar Essence ST card working great. Installed codecs, Aqualung, and now streaming online radio while browsing the web. All from a 40 meg very minimal debian netinst iso image, and all of this only took about 3 or 4 hours. And I'm listening to Baroque radio. Love classical style music late at night. bthylafh, thank you for pointing me in the right direction in my "old days of computer" post. Next project will be proprietary NVIDIA drivers, but I will save that for tomorrow after work.

With hdd's as LARGE and CHEAP as they are now, why both with the minimalistic approach? Even the bloatiest debian image would take what? couple gigs? on a terabyte hdd, that would be like a penny against a million dollars.